Jospeh Ellis introduces his book with the preface titled, The Generation. The purpose of this book is to examine and explore the key members of the American Revolution and how all their relationships were connected. Ellis wants his readers to look at this novel from a point of what happened on that actual date and also how historians represent it today. Ellis made the focus of Founding Brothers on Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton.
The first real chapter of this book is titled The Duel. This chapter explains to the reader the most famous duel in American history. The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The two men met on July 11, 1804 near Weehawken, New Jersey. A duel was a challenge based on one’s honor. Hamilton’s death was inevitable and Ellis dives deeper into what really happened that day. He also talks about how the duel, not even this one in particular, reveals the importance of personal reputation in the early forms of government.
In the second chapter, The Dinner, Ellis explains how three men met together in order to save their country from financial disaster. This was the dinner held in 1790. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton had all set aside their political differences to meet. They were trying to compromise and come up with a plan to pay off the national debt and also to figure out where to put the nation’s new capitol. Ellis hints that the story may have been changed because of Jefferson’s own vanity and selfish reasons. He explains how the story tells us more about Jefferson, as a person and politician, than about the compromise. Ellis believes they might have come up with the compromise before the dinner ever took place.
In the third chapter, titled The Silence, Ellis talks about how the issue of slavery was a difficult topic from even when the country was first founded. He gives the example of 1790, where both a Quaker delegation and Benjamin Franklin urged the House of Representatives to fight for an end to the African slave trade, not actual slavery. Ellis continues by explaining how southerners were upset by this idea and demanded it be dropped while the northerners wanted to stop slave trade with complete emancipation. They weren’t able to come to a real agreement, which shows how difficult of a topic this was for early government.
In the fourth chapter, The Farewell, Ellis explains how George Washington’s retirement from the presidency went down. Ellis thinks Washington resigning was a sign of strength and wisdom, while others see it as weakness and failure. Ellis argues that Washington knew how powerful his position was and never wanted to take advantage of it. He believed a two-term presidency would keep America strong and avoid the possibility of another monarchy. Washington also stepped down because he was constantly being beat up in the press. Washington’s health was declining and he didn’t want to keep adding that stress. This chapter ends with a discussion of the major points in Washington’s Farewell Address.
Chapter five is titled, The Collaborators, and explains an important relationship between two of the Founding Fathers, the relationship between Adams and Jefferson . Ellis now turns his attention to the relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson for these last two chapters. The two men were once inseparable friends but were then struck with political different and became almost enemies, especially during Adams’s term as the country’s second President. During his reign, Jefferson served as Vice President since they ran against each other. Ellis looks into Adams’s presidency and point out how it was filled with a whole lot of issues. Jefferson once unfairly criticized Adams and completely severed their friendship. After Adams left office, Jefferson won in 1800. Jefferson mostly won because of those attacks.
Finally, in the last chapter, titled The Friendship, Ellis explains how Adams and Jefferson finally made up. After they renewed their friendship, they sent letter to one another up until their deaths. Neither of the men wrote after Jefferson won the election, but after some time had passed they started writing a little. Ellis explains each of these letters, pointing out how they discussed the Revolutionary period, current events, and the country’s future. Adam’s and Jefferson’s long friendship ended on July 4, 1826, because they had both passed away on that day. July 4, 1826 was also the nation’s 50th Independence Day.